EclectEcon Religion: Opiate of the Masses or Root of All Evil?

Christopher Hitchens has a new book, God Is Not Great, in which he argues that all three of the major religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) have been and are responsible for tonnes of evil. In many respects, I fear, he is correct. Here are some quotes from a recent item in The National Post [sorry, no link]:

In the Harry Potteresque Great Hall at the University of Toronto this week, two security men were poised for a confrontation, and with good reason.

Christopher Hitchens was explaining why he hates religion: Islam, because it exhibits a “horrible trio of self-hatred, self-righteousness and self-pity” while making a “cult of death, suicide and murder,” and Judaism, because it leads to Christianity. “I am absolutely convinced that the main source of hatred in the world is religion,” the famously contrarian journalist and author told an appreciative crowd of undergraduates gathered to hear him explain why freedom of speech should include the freedom to hate.

“Look anywhere you like, to slavery, to the subjugation of women as chattel, to the burning and flogging of homosexuals, to ethnic cleansing, to anti-Semitism, for all of this look no further than a famous book that is on every pulpit in this city, and in every synagogue and every mosque. And then you’ll see whether you can square this circle: that the force that is the main source of hatred is also the main caller for censorship,” he said.

These views seem to be a logical of extension of Hitchens' criticism of Mother Teresa for being ineffective in reducing poverty, The Missionary Position.

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[h/t to Jack and to Dave Friedman]

(link)

Kent Budge (mail) (www):

Hitchens glosses over a few things that ought not to be glossed over. Among these are the positive contributions of religion; for example, it was religion that drove both abolition of slavery in the West and the American civil rights movement of the 60s.

But aside from that, Hitchens ignores the distinction between correlation and causation. Suppose, for sake of argument, that religion really is associated with more problems than successes. Is it that religion prompts awful conduct, or that awful conduct shapes religion? In other words, did (reviled religious person) act worse because of religion, or did he twist his religion to justify bad things he wanted to do anyway?

To pick an historical analog that may illuminate my point: Did Hitler order Jews massacred because he was an adherent of Nazism? Or did Nazism take the shape it did because it was founded by Hitler, who wanted to massacre Jews? In the former case, one can argue that Nazism caused the Holocaust. In the latter case, Nazism merely justified the Holocaust -- bad enough in itself, of course, but not the root cause.

In any case, I'm not sure what Hitchen's action item is. Is he proposing to restrict religious liberties?

11.30.2006 12:47pm

EclectEcon (mail) (www):

Kent, your point about slavery and civil rights is absolutely right, and those (along with the sense of community and the "insurance" that is implicit in many organizations) seem like some important exceptions in the history of religion.

But I'm not sure your analogy works. Of course correlation does not establish causation, but correlation coupled with documents that establish intent seems like pretty powerful evidence.

I realize Hitchens was painting with a very broad brush here, and that there are other exceptions, in addition to the ones we have both pointed out. And I don't know what his proposal would be, but I really doubt if it would be to restrict religious liberties other than to require that they not conflict with other law. What I have in mind here is that when religious sanctions and civil sanctions conflict, I expect he would argue (and I know I would) that the civil sanctions must take precedence.

11.30.2006 2:52pm

Ronnie (mail):

I think there needs to be a distinction drawn between pragmatic and fanatical believers; the latter being a cause for concern.

I agree that fanatical religiosity has been very pronounced within Islam and Christianity, which may be caused by their formulations; I do not see how this implicates religion or religiosity in general, which consists of more than only the two most popular Judeo-Christian religions.

Further, I find it likely that the independent predispositions of specific individuals involved (especially in leadership) and the organizational structure of society has more effect on violent tendencies than religious tenets, which may be changed as needed.

An implication of my opinion is that the harms commonly associated with religion are not exclusive to religion.

11.30.2006 11:47pm

Acad Ronin:

I wonder if it is religon that is the problem, rather than the correlation between religion and ethnicity. One can choose one's religion but not one's ethnicity and so religion is potentially a noisy signal of ethnicity. If we are biologically hard-wired to favor kin, and therefore disfavor not-kin, kinship would trump religion as an organizing principle for hatred. Darfur would be an example, but not a powerful one. Bosnia is a powerful counterexample in that there is, as far as I know, no ethnic difference, other than religion andits behavioral correlates, between Bosnia Croats, Serbs, and Muslims. However endogamy, the tendency to marry co-religionists, might be sufficient to separate kin and not-kin. The lack of cross-cutting family ties then permits the separation and correlation. The issue then is do the universal religions (Christianity and Islam) on balance moderate the inherently vicious nature of man, or do they intensify it by providing an admittedly twisted rationale for hatred?

Full disclosure: I am on the indifferent end of agnosticism.

12.1.2006 8:32am

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